Been thinking about writing.
What a surprise.
Harlan Ellison is on record as saying that not everyone should write. That not everyone can write. That, in point of fact, those people who want to write should be actively and even aggressively discouraged from doing so. They should be shut down. They should be shot down. He’s done this, apocryphally, on more than one occasion. Last I checked, his rationale was that, if someone truly wants to write, they won’t give him any due whatsoever. In brief, it’s a test. Believe what he says about you, your writing, your desire to write, set the pen down and walk away, you’ve failed; say “nuts to you, Mister Ellison, sir,” and you’re a step closer to becoming a writer.
I’ve said before that I think writing is an illness, not a profession. The world of difference between the writer who is up at the crack of dawn, putting down words until their eyes have gone teary and their vision has blurred, and the person who writes “when they feel like it” is enormous. It’s the difference between a professional and a diletante. It’s the difference between doing it because you have no alternative, and doing it as a hobby. This distinction has no immediate reflection on the merit of said writing, mind; I’m more than willing to accept that the hobbyest will occasionally knock one out of the park. I just cannot accept that the same hobbyest is likely to hit the metaphoric ball consistently.
I also believe that writing cannot be taught, per se. The nature of the craft is so intensely individual that what works for one may not, perhaps even cannot, work for another. But more, the nature of the craft is tied directly to the crafter; I write the way I write, the stories that I want to tell, the way I want to tell them. The exact same stories, with the same beginning, middle, and ending, in the hands of (using comic writers, here) a Gail Simone or a Mark Waid or a Kelly Sue DeConnick become, by necessity, different animals. Who we are as people is different, thus our view of the world is different, thus our stories, inherently, are different, even if they are ostensibly, apparently, the same.
Writing cannot be taught, perhaps. But it can be learned. It can be learned through reading and thinking and doing. I cannot read your work and tell you “do this, do that, do the other,” and make you a writer. I can, at best, read and try to understand what it is you’re trying to achieve, and judge its success or failure in my own eyes. I can tell you where I feel you stepped wrong, I can suggest ways to correct the perceived error. I can tell you what isn’t working, and why I think that is the case. I can offer to you those writers I hold in high esteem, and sometimes point to their expertise, their tools, their techniques, offering them as examples to emulate. I can offer my own tips and tricks and advice and experience, but in the end, that is never enough, because you have to do the writing yourself, and writing is perhaps the most intensely isolating, solitary artistic endeavor of our species. You are, ultimately, on your own.
And what I cannot do, ever, is tell you the story you should write. All other advice given, all other suggestions made, you are the person to tell your story, and it is not my place nor right to attempt to make that my own. The story is yours. Your voice, your vision, your passion, your drive. I may hate that story you want to write, but that’s not the point. I may think it’s worthless and pointless and even stupid, but it’s yours. Uniquely yours. Properly yours.
(As an aside – it can be far harder to discern the story you’re trying to tell than you might think. More than once, I’ve written something only to finish it and then, seeing the whole, come to understand what exactly it was I was trying to write about. This is why we revise. This is why we have drafts. This is why we rewrite. This is why no story is finished, only abandoned.)
So, I’ve been thinking about writing. And I’ve concluded – all things being equal, presuming the same command of the language, the same indefinable need to tell a story, the same passion – that there are (roughly) five traits I look for when looking for good writing, writing of quality, writing of merit.
In no particular order, these are: Honesty, Courage, Discipline, Commitment, and Passion.
Seems to me those are five perfectly fine topics for upcoming Dispatches, so that’s my plan for the next couple weeks, taking us into the start of Chapter Two.
Next up, Honesty.
Hold fast, and enjoy your long weekend, if indeed a long weekend is what you have in store!
Greg
Creative writing cannot be taught. I agree. Formula writing in an academic or professional discipline can be taught and imitated. Good writing takes time and dedication, even discipline. By good I mean original, expressive, beautiful, concise, and witty. But the illness can be describe as an addiction as much as anything. When one needs to write it is no longer a hobby, even if one struggles sick and exhausted for a few lines a night (no pun intended). Holding out for the next glimmer of hope, and feeling like a complete waste of space when nothing comes down the line.
Stephen King said a lot of the same things in ON WRITING. He also said that, while it may be possible for a good writer to become great, nothing on this Earth will ever make a bad writer good. Truer words.
I agree that writing can’t really be taught (especially dialogue — you either have an ear or you don’t), but STORY absolutely can. And mastery of story structure, including the wisdom to know when and why to deviate from convention, is often the difference between publishable work and a big, loud waste of the reader’s time. The difference between writing and typing.
I appreciate this. It is true on so many levels, and any potential writer should read this. They need to know the five traits you mentioned because they are dead-on.
Thanks for voicing so many feelings, and have a great weekend.
Dev
In an after school comic book club that I help run where the kids create their own comics, one of the things we try to tell our “creators” is that no one will write or draw the same concept the same way. To reinforce this, we have them draw a mini comic from script and then walk around the room to see how everyone has drawn it. We show them this because we want to encourage individuality instead of trying to copy the coolest concept in the room. It’s neat to see the different ways people interpret the same thing. Your point about writing is spot on. Give the same concept to different writers, and they’ll all bring something different to the table.
It’s what makes art so interesting because there’s always that piece of the creator that’s in it that makes it unique and special. Whether it’s good or not is purely subjective.
I’m not entirely sure I agree that writing cannot be taught. I’d certainly agree that simply having what makes a good story explained to you will never work as well as learning it from reading/experiencing as much as you can.
However, I’d argue technique can be taught in writing just as it can be in painting or playing a guitar. Knowing how to phrase an opening paragraph or write convincing dialogue is as much a teachable skill as how to finger the right chords or understand perspective. And it’s not as if, simply because they’ve been taught the same, two guitarists won’t have completely unique and personal approaches to their music.
And while you can’t tell people what to write, but you can show them better ways of working it out for themselves. Teaching can be practical as well as theoretical.
I’d also add that, to my mind, the major difference between someone who wakes up and writes all day and someone who only writes as a hobby might be a little thing called payment. Surely that’s really what separates professionals from the dilettantes?
And, I think it should be noted that, in my experience, it’s those who are compelled to write who are often the “bad” writers. They’re the ones who send off dozens and dozens of unreadable scripts and unpublishable manuscripts to publishers. They’re the ones who will ignore every single obstacle or rebuke in their quest to become a professional, unable to accept that their work simply isn’t good enough.
I didn’t say that being compelled to write guarantees you’ll write well. But you sure as heck aren’t going to get any better at it unless you do it.
Longer response due, but I’m short on time, thus I’ll leave it at that for the moment.
@Frank Beaton: “while it may be possible for a good writer to become great, nothing on this Earth will ever make a bad writer good.”
Sorry, but your quote is a bit wrong. King said it’s possible to make a good writer out of a competent one (with lots of hard work), but it’s impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad one, or a great writer out of a merely good one. Great writers are, to King, “divine accidents” or “fortunate freaks”.
Thanks for the correction, Leandro! I know King’s actual essay is quite a bit more nuanced than what I wrote. I was going for brevity.
I disagree about your differentiation between a dilettante and a professional.
Fritz Leiber, one of the greatest writers of any fiction, did not write for years or months at a time. He was a professional writer. And his short stories are home runs, grand slams! Fantastic and wondrous, at the very least.
I imagine that there were more professional writers like this, ones who lived and died poor and penniless, some who died rich and ridiculously rewarded.
And I agree that you are what you say you are in this blog post, but I do not think it applies to all professional writers. Sure, the exception that proves the rule. But I think it’s a bit denigrating to people who don’t wake up and put down words starting every morning until their eyes are teary, denigrating to people who love and are committed to getting better at writing.
Some of my favorite actors have been the guy or gal who is not professional, who does not do it for a living, who has to have a day job, who does not get paid for it all the time or even some of the time. And they are just as good as professionals who I have seen. And on a consistent basis. They are just as dedicated. They are not dilettantes.
Now (ahem), I will say this: You are one of my favorite writers, ever. You are amazing. And I got my wife hooked on your work. You are an exceptional talent, and I am glad that you wake up every day and do what you do, because you are an amazing writer. And I can’t wait to read more of your work as you create it. I search out YOUR work, because I know that you are going to hit it out of the park every time (no pressure).
Anyway, I just think that it is great that I get to disagree with one of my favorite writers! What a thrill!
Thanks for letting me talk back at ya’.
Mike
I think you’re missing my point, and I’m not certain your example disproves it, either. Glenn Cook, one of my favorite authors, worked as, I believe, a machinist on the line in an auto factory for years, all the while putting out some wonderful fantasy novels. Hours dedicated to the task doesn’t guarantee success or even recognition, and most writers have never had the fortune of making a living at their art, and that in no way diminishes their efforts, nor the quality of the work. What I’m talking about – and what I sincerely believe – is there a difference between the artist who attends to their craft and those who think simply typing away merrily makes them a writer. This extends, obviously, to all the arts – there are stock summer theatre amateurs who, I am certain, could blow the socks off of Al Pacino and all the rest, who will never be known, either because they will labor in obscurity or because they have no interest in seeking wider recognition. I do not, and would not, diminish that commitment.
What I take offense at, honestly, is the person who denigrates what I and others in my profession do, those who view writing, in particular, as a job that “anyone could do.” The number of times I’ve heard someone say, “Oh, I’m working on a novel” is enough to make you scream, seriously. Not because I don’t believe them, but because their implication is that I do not have a “real job.”
This is, perhaps, the distinction between one’s “work” and one’s “job,” if one wishes to view it broadly – when I was painting houses, that was my job; writing three thousand words a day, every day, that was my work.
Thanks for your comments, and my best to your wife!
(Oh, and yes, seriously – NO PRESSURE?!? AHHHHH!!!!)
Greg